The Sergeant was disappointed. "It struck me she might be looking for the weapon that killed the old man. Seemed fishy to me."
"She wouldn't have had to look far," said the Inspector. "Not if it's in this room. What's wrong with your eyesight, my lad?"
The Sergeant blinked, and gazed about him. Hemingway pointed a finger at the wall above the fireplace. Flanking the head of an antlered deer were two old flintlock pistols, a pair of knives in ornate sheaths, and various other weapons, ranging from a Zulu knobkerrie to a seventeenth-century halberd.
"Just about as much gumption as the locals, that's what you've got!" said Hemingway scornfully. "Get up on a chair, and take a look at those two daggers! And don't go fingering them!"
Swallowing this insult, the Sergeant pulled a chair forward, and said that it was funny how you could miss a thing that was right under your nose.
"I don't know what you mean by "you"!" retorted Hemingway. "I know what I'd mean by it, but that's different. And funny isn't the word I'd use, either. Any dust on those daggers?"
The Sergeant, standing on the chair, reached up, leaning a hand against the wall to steady himself. "No. At least, yes: on the undersides," he said, peering at them.
"Both free from dust on the outside?"
"Pretty well. So's this pike-affair. Careful servants in this house. I expect they do 'em with one of those feather dusters on the end of a long stick."
"Never mind what they do them with! Hand those daggers down to me!"